physical

Electricity demand from data centers

February 17, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Data centers are dedicated facilities containing computers and their related hardware equipment such as servers, data storage drives, and network equipment; they are the physical facilities that store digital data. Data centers are one of the most energy-intensive building types, consuming 10 to 50 times more energy per floor space than a typical commercial office building. With the explosive growth of artificial intelligence technology, data center energy use is expanding rapidly.

A new report by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory outlines the energy use of data centers from 2014 to 2028. The report estimates that data center load growth has tripled over the past decade and is likely to double or triple again by 2028.

Data centers consumed about 4.4% of total U.S. electricity in 2023 and are projected to consume between 6.7% and 12% of total U.S. electricity by 2028. Most of the increased power demand of data centers is due to the growth in AI servers. Artificial intelligence requires increasingly powerful chips and intense, power-hungry cooling systems.

There have been revolutionary changes in artificial intelligence technology in just the past couple of years and its role in society has dramatically expanded. With that expansion has come a dramatic change in the energy usage by the data industry and innovative solutions are needed to allow data centers to meet their growing demand for energy.

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Berkeley Lab Report Evaluates Increase in Electricity Demand from Data Centers

Photo, posted August 31, 2024, courtesy of Aileen Devlin / Jefferson Lab via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Thawing permafrost: Is it a ticking timebomb?

July 8, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Permafrost covers about a quarter of the landmass in the Northern Hemisphere. It stores vast quantities of organic carbon in the form of dead plant matter. As long as it stays frozen, it is no threat to the climate. But as it thaws, microorganisms start breaking down that plant matter and large amounts of carbon are released into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide and methane.

This process has often been described as a ticking timebomb for the climate. The theory is that once global warming reaches a certain level, the process will become self-amplifying setting off a catastrophic amount of warming. If that level was reached, it would be a tipping point in the changing climate.

An international research team from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany has extensively researched this hypothesis. Their conclusion is that within the permafrost, there are multiple geological, hydrological, and physical processes that are self-amplifying and, in some cases, irreversible. However, these processes act only locally or regionally. There is no evidence that some particular threshold in global warming could affect all permafrost and accelerate its thawing on a global level.

This research does not mean that Arctic permafrost is nothing to worry about. In fact, there are ways in which it is more worrisome. Because the permafrost is very heterogenous – meaning it is very different in different places – there will be numerous small, local tipping points that will be exceeded at different times and at different levels of warming. All of this will proceed in step with global warming, contributing to the overall worsening situation. There is no warming level below which permafrost thawing is not a problem.

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Thawing permafrost: Not a climate tipping element, but nevertheless far-reaching impacts

Photo, posted January 24, 2014, courtesy of Brandt Meixell / USGS via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The Importance Of Urban Green Spaces | Earth Wise

August 10, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Projections are that 68% of the global population will be living in cities by 2050. It is therefore not surprising that urban green spaces are critically important for promoting mental and physical well-being.

An international study, published in Science Advances, took soil samples from different types of urban green spaces and comparable neighboring natural ecosystems in 56 cities from 17 countries across six continents.

The study concluded that even roadside plantings contribute a range of important microbial communities that are critical for sustaining productive ecosystems services, such as filtering pollutants and sequestering carbon dioxide.

Parks and gardens constitute most of the open spaces available for recreational activities in cities and play important roles in curbing pollution, reducing noise, and lowering air temperatures.

In addition, human exposure to soil microbes has been shown to be beneficial to human health by promoting effective immunoregulation functions and reducing allergies. The study found that city parks and even roadside plantings support a great variety of different microbes that are different from natural ecosystems.

We think of roadsides as being barren but the vegetation along footpaths and roadsides are important microbial habitats. Some European cities, such as Bern in Switzerland, have instituted policies to protect the natural vegetation along footpaths and roadsides.

The new study is a part of a series of research efforts looking at the important of green spaces for ecosystem health. As the world becomes increasingly urbanized, every bit of greenery in cities and highways is important and is needed for sustaining a healthy environment.

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Every spot of urban green space counts

Photo, posted June 3, 2013, courtesy of Manuel MV via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Sustainable Polymer From Wood | Earth Wise

February 24, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Scientists from the University of Bath in the UK have developed a sustainable polymer using xylose, a sugar found in wood.

The new polymer is a member of the polyether family. It could be used in a variety of applications, including being a building block for polyurethane, used for example in mattresses and shoe soles. It could also be a bio-derived alternative to polyethylene glycol, a chemical widely used in biomedicine, or in polyethylene oxide, which is sometimes used as an electrolyte in batteries.

Xylose, also known as wood sugar, is one of the most abundant carbohydrates on earth, second only to glucose. Apart from comprising 5-20% of hardwoods, xylose is a major component of straw, corncobs, and many other plant materials.

The new polymer could reduce reliance on crude oil products and its properties can be easily controlled to make the material flexible or crystalline. Added functionality could be added to it by binding other chemical groups such as fluorescent probes or dyes to the sugar molecule for biological or chemical sensing applications.

Tweaking the physical and chemical properties of bio-derived polymers has previously been a very difficult thing to do. The Bath researchers discovered that combining two mirror-image chemical forms of xylose results in a stronger and more adaptable material. They have filed a patent for their technology and are seeking industrial collaborators for further development.

The reliance of plastics and polymers on fossil fuels is a major problem. Bio-derived polymers, such as this new one, are an important part of the effort to make plastics sustainable.

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Scientists make sustainable polymer from sugars in wood

Photo, posted January 25, 2017, courtesy of Keith Double via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Concrete Production And Diminishing Coal Burning | Earth Wise

June 5, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Coal burning is still one of the primary means of generating electricity in the United States, but its use is diminishing and doing so fairly rapidly. The coal burning process produces residual, incombustible materials. One of them is fly ash, which is composed of fine, glassy, rounded particles rich in silicon, aluminum, calcium, and iron oxides. Fly ash is captured from coal plant flue gas by precipitators and bag filters. It turns out that two-thirds of this fly ash is not dumped into landfills or impoundments, but rather is put to use.

Because of its chemical and physical characteristics, fly ash can substitute for a portion of portland cement in concrete. Using this byproduct material in making cement actually reduces its cost. Beyond cost, the addition of fly ash as a so-called supplementary cementitious material or SCM improves concrete’s long-term strength and reduces porosity and permeability. It reduces the risk of thermal cracking and provides good long-term mechanical properties.

The amount of fly ash used in concrete products increased by 5% between 2011 and 2017 while the amount produced dropped by 36%. Concrete production continues to increase steadily while fly ash production is steadily dropping.

Therefore, the concrete industry is looking for alternative sources of SCM. The most obvious is the approximately 1/3 of fly ash that hasn’t been used to make concrete. Much of that is landfilled or ponded onsite at power plants. So, opportunities exist for excavating or dredging and recovering these materials.

As coal burning goes away, concrete manufacturing needs to make some changes.

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What Does the Changing Face of Electricity Production Mean for Concrete?

Photo, posted February 16, 2017, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.